March 05, 2018

Theology in a Nutshell - Jesus: Jesus Suffered & Died by Steve Mueller

8. Jesus Suffered & Died

The greatest test of love is the willingness to give oneself for others. So parents consider no sacrifice too great when their children are involved. Close friends will do anything to help one another. Jesus’ love for us insured that he would do whatever it took to bring us into God’s kingdom.

Since Jesus was genuinely human, like us he would have to die. But his violent death was the result of the Judean religious leaders’ hostility. Threatened because Jesus was opening a new way to God and a new community that would not depend on the Jerusalem temple, the religious leaders decided to have Jesus killed. Since for the Jews God’s messiah would be both a religious and a political leader, they skillfully exploited the political part so that the Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate would identify Jesus as a political threat and crucify him.

Only later did the disciples understand the real meaning of Jesus’ death. They recognized that it was not the apparent triumph of evil over Jesus but instead the real victory of God over the creation-disordering powers in God’s plan for salvation. Jesus’ death was the final stage in his mission to bring about God’s kingdom. He was willing remain loyal to God and to give his life to see his mission fulfilled by trusting in God’s power to make “the kingdom come.”